Reflections
by Charlie Hayden
Summary: Leia Skywalker reflects on her childhood and her father after her mother's death and comes to learn just how much she has in common with her father.


**A/N**:_This is a one shot only. No It does not need expansion as it is a reflection not a novel and all the info you need is detailed inside the reflection. I wrote this last year and I am still debating if I should include Luke's thoughts or the letters Anakin wrote to each twin. I hope you enjoy._

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I used to hate him most days but that was when I barely understood him. I used to wish that he wasn't so serious all the time and when he yelled, I just wished that he would go away. I never really saw that he was in pain, I never thought of it, I was too focused on my own pain. I just didn't realize how much I had in common with my father. I didn't realize that he understood what it was that I was feeling. I know that I had hurt him with my anger and my resentment and it astonishes me that he could put that aside.

My mother died when I was six years old. An old supporter of the late Chancellor Palpatine had decided to get even with the senate for stripping him of his titles, bestowed onto him by Palpatine, and set off a detonator in the senate. My mother was a senator and a casualty of the bombing. My father was a Jedi, dispatched for the cleaning crew, he was the one who found her, barely alive. She wasn't even supposed to be in the senate that day. Somehow she managed to survive, for three days, but despite the healers best efforts, they could not save her, she died in my father's arms. Those who were present claim that he refused to let her go, he loved her too much.

My mother was given a state funeral, befitting the Queens of Naboo. It seemed like every citizen of Naboo was there, because she was that much beloved. The progression through Theed seemed to take forever. My brother and I kept somber faces the entire day. My father was as expressionless as a droid. I remember when they closed her tomb, I realized then that she wasn't going to wake up and that this wasn't some cruel joke or a nightmare and I curled my hands into my father's larger hand, I looked up to his face, to his unreadable expression, I didn't cry because he didn't, I believed that I wasn't supposed to. Later on he packed up all of her things and everything else that could remind him of her and stored it away, out of sight. I never saw him cry, I didn't know until later that his pride prevented him from ever letting anyone see him cry, that the only person he had ever felt comfortable with seeing him so vulnerable was my mother. I didn't realize that he was trying to be strong for my brother and I, to put on a brave face for us, he didn't want us to feel any worse than we already did.

He never remarried, he never even dated, he never loved anyone other than my mother. There were things that I missed out on, that I could not do, because I didn't have a mother. I blamed him for it. I watched as other girls went shopping with their mothers, heard their discussions, there were mother/daughter sleepovers, mother/daughter balls that I could not attend, because my mother was dead and I was left alone while the other girls talked about them. As I grew older, he became more distant and impatient. I never left him alone, I demanded that he at least talk about her, but he wouldn't. I hated him for it and told him so enough times for him to get the hint, but he still refused to utter her name or mention her in passing. It was like she never existed and I hated it.

I ran away once when I was thirteen. I made it as far as CoCo Town before he caught up with me and dragged me home. We had a huge row that night and I said some things that I shouldn't have. It was the first time that he had hit me. Not two seconds after he had backhanded me, I saw the regret in his eyes and he started to apologize but I wouldn't let him. I told him that I wished that it was him who had died instead of her and ran off. Looking back on it, I wish that I could take that moment back. I know how much my words had hurt him.

Luke had an easier time than I did, or so it seemed. Its hard to tell with Luke sometimes. He rarely lets on what he's really thinking or feeling. Luke had always been more calm and controlled than I ever was. That was why he got along better with our father than I did. Luke was a perfect Jedi and my father loved it. Out of spite, I abandoned the role of a Jedi and decided to take up politics, knowing how much my father hated politics, and to force him to be reminded of my mother.

When I was sixteen, I broke into the storage room and rummaged through my mother's things. Her clothes still smelled like her favorite perfume. The sensational scent of waterfalls and flowers and I breathed it in deeply, trying to conjure up a memory. I gazed at her holos and marveled at how beautiful she was. I listened to the records of her senate speeches, her voice was so elegant, she was so regal. I tried on her gowns, tried on her jewelry. I rummaged some more and found a datadisc that was untitled. I had just tucked it into my pocket when my father found me. He was so angry, it was like I had desecrated her things by touching them. I hadn't realized that I was in there for five hours and that because there was a riot at the academy I was attending and he couldn't locate me, he had feared for my safety. Late into the night, I took the datadisc out and fed it into my datapad to discover that it contained love letters my parents sent to each other when my father was away during the war. They loved each other so deeply and those letters became the only way for me to get to know my mother and I cherished them deeply, I kept them as my most closely kept secret.

When I was nineteen, I began dating a Republican Navel pilot from Corella named Han Solo. My father instantly disliked his cocky attitude. My father's disapproval egged me on to continue my relationship with Han and later on we were both surprised to find out that we were in love. It irked my father even further when Han and I decided to get married. My father had a background check run on Han when it became apparent that Han wasn't going anywhere and was even less impressed when some shady things turned up in the report. My father tried several times to sabotage things between Han and I, because he didn't believe Han was fit enough for me. In the end a true test of character came when a disgruntled employee in the senate rotunda brought in a blaster and killed several senators. Han took blasterfire for me, nearly dying in the process. Because Han had risked his own life for mine, my father finally accepted Han and ceased all hostility towards him.

Three weeks before my wedding, I was still searching for a dress when I had walked into my room, frustrated with the fact that I couldn't find what I was looking for. The large cream colored box sitting the the middle of my bed became plainly obvious the minute that I had walked in the door. I was suspicious of the way it looked faded and at the amount of dust that covered the top. But when I opened it, I discovered the most beautiful wedding dress I had ever seen. I pulled it out of the box so fast in order to hold it up against me in front of the mirror that I did not notice the folded piece of flimsy that had fallen to the floor until I went to pull the shoes I had bought weeks before for the wedding out from under my bed. I bent down to pick it up, unfolded it to see my father's scrappy handwriting and was astonished to learn that the dress was the one that my mother wore when my parents were married. In that moment, the dress became even more precious. I was in disbelief that my father had dragged it out of storage, after all, he still refused to even speak about her. I didn't voice my surprise, I just hugged the dress to me tightly and inhaled the scent of my mother's perfume that still lingered.

I missed my mother the most the day of my wedding. She wasn't there to help me prepare for the ceremony. She wasn't there to tell me what to expect out of being someone's wife. She wasn't there, sitting next to my father, gushing about how beautiful I looked. Had she been there she probably would have chastised my father about refusing to release me after walking me down the isle and stopped him from trying to make one last ditch effort to convince me to not go through with it. Later on he would grumble about the fact that arguing with me was like trying to bargain with a hutt just as it had been when it came to arguing with my mother, much to mine and Luke's utter shock. But to find out that I shared that trait with my mother put a sense of pride deep inside of me.

It wasn't until I was expecting my youngest child that I was able to understand my father. He had gone off on yet another mission for his quest in freeing the slaves on Tatooine, an attempt to fulfill a promise he had made as a child. But he never came home. A slaver who was trying to escape arrest somehow managed to sneak up on my father, and before my father could make a move, shot him and killed him. I remember feeling numb after learning about it before anger took over me. Luke and I had spent a considerable amount of time trying to get through his affairs and affects when we each found letters in his scrappy handwriting, one for each of us. They were dated the night after our mother's funeral and meant for us to read in the event of his death. They were long, detailed letters and through them we learned more about our father than he had ever disclosed in life. Through my own letter, I finally learned that my father and I were not as different as I had thought. He knew exactly everything that I had ever felt, he had experienced it all first hand himself after his own mother died. I wish he had told me. I sometimes reflect on the difference that it would have made had he told me. I named my second son after him in remembrance, to honor my father, proud to be his daughter.

My name is Senator Leia Amidala Skywalker-Solo.

Twin sister of Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight.

Daughter of Senator Padmé Amidala, beloved former queen of Naboo, beloved daughter, sister, wife and mother.

Daughter of Anakin Skywalker, Jedi Master, loving husband and father. Hero With No Fear, Son of Suns. The most wonderful and understanding father there ever was.

I am proud of who I am, because my father taught me how to be.


End file.
